Crawling pests, such as the German cockroach (Blattella germanica) are well known to carry disease and are widely considered to be undesirable insects. The German cockroach is a smaller member of the cockroach family and is frequently a pest in food processing and preparation areas including hotels, nursing homes, hotels and other institutions. They are widespread pests capable of surviving in many different parts of the world. They are a type of thigmotactic insect, meaning that they generally react to a physical stimulus, and here prefer tight spaces. Such insects frequently hide out of sight in cracks and crevices that are easy for humans to overlook. Such insects also reproduce rapidly and thus are susceptible to treatments that are slow acting and can be transferred between pests.
Numerous designs of crawling insect pest stations are commercially available, some use large containment areas, while others use wide open, flat surfaces with various forms of attractants and capture mechanisms, such as glue boards. Problems exist with such devices. For example, cockroaches have been observed to contact the edges of glue boards and escape. It was discovered that when such glue boards were rolled into cylinders, cockroaches would fill the underside of the glue roll. Similarly, a flat glue board was placed with its glue side or sticky side down and another flat glue board was placed with its sticky side up. It was found that the entire surface of the glue side down board was filled while only the edges of the sticky side up board were filled. Thus, it is desirable to provide a crawling insect monitor that is directed to crawling insets who desire small, narrow, or covered spaces.
Many of the currently available crawling insect pest stations also leave the glue surface or the pesticide surface exposed to environmental conditions such as light, water and physical objects that could impact effectiveness. This also leaves potentially hazardous substances typically found in glues and pesticides exposed to potential human contact. This also exposes the pesticides and glues to other physical contacts that may erode their presence and thus minimize their effectiveness. It is therefore also desirable to provide an attraction station having features that are effective at concealing and protecting the attracting, trapping, and killing areas of the station.
It is further desirable to provide an attraction station that maximizes the effectiveness of pesticides and allows for safe monitoring and killing of crawling insects and insect colonies while providing a dual action treatment that either captures the crawling insect or exposes the insect to pesticide.